


Canoodling

by kozz



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, friendship... also a ship, let them date, literally on a ship, simple fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-12 22:56:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18456320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kozz/pseuds/kozz
Summary: “Hey Luka…” you finally venture“Hey, Marinette,”“I have a question for you.”He looks up. You don’t miss the fondness in his gaze, one that warms you up inside like a hot drink on a cold day.“Do… you believe in having a one true love?”





	Canoodling

   “Canoodling.” you mutter, adding another curve to the costume design in your sketchbook.  
   “Is that what we’re going to call it?” you hear Luka’s amused reply  
   “You are noodling, and I am doodling, and we’re on a houseboat, which… well, I guess it isn’t exactly canoeing, is it?”  
   “Are you trying to craft a pun, Miss Dupain-Cheng?”  
   You would think after so much exposure to puns that you’d be a little better at them by now.  
   “Maybe.”  
   “So if anyone asks us what we’re up to, we’re canoodling?”  
   Your pencil freezes in mid-stroke on your paper  
   “Well when you phrase it like that,” you wave the tip of your pencil thoughtfully “it almost sounds dangerous.” Luka’s shoulders tremble a little as he suppresses an inward chuckle. Whatever you want to call this, you don’t want it to end.  
   You get to see a lot of Paris while flying around in a suit, but most often the scenery is a complete blur. The houseboat Liberty cruises down the river at a gentle glide, and the city ambles alongside its patchwork sides in roving multiplanes. You see an ocean of white walls and blue zinc roofs in the distance. The warm, afternoon skies are completely free of akumas, Luka is reposed on the seats near the bow, curled slightly around a Gibson.  
    There’s no place you’d rather be right now.  
    You’ve made a habit of spending time with Luka for the past several weeks. It started when you were designing costumes for the Kitty Section. You would linger after the rehearsal wrapped up, until it was just you and the Couffaine family. Between intermittent chord plucks, you watched Luka and Juleka gradually debate their song compositions, rehash, and reverse, occasionally with their mother critiquing and offering her stage experience. Without even realizing it, you become less of a passive observer, become an element of their familial interactions. When they ask for an unbiased opinion, you’re able to weigh in.  
    You’re starting to understand their jokes too. All three of them have a wry, wisened sense of humor that makes you take a double take. As you spend more time with them, the more you’re starting to appreciate subtle comedy.  
    Luka pauses in strumming and leans over an open notebook of blank sheet music. You watch him as he crosses something out, and write something else in. You have no idea how to read music, but something about seeing notes scratched over the lined pages, with other annotations scrawled in the margins, feels very familiar to you. Luka is an artist, like you, a kindred spirit.  
    He calls it “noodling” when he’s feeling out the shape of a new song, stringing along short melodies and chords. It’s not unlike the way you sketch out your designs, rough, crude and not remotely resembling anything in particular, except to get out the idea that you can recognize in your mind, the feeling you both want to capture. When you show him your sketchbook, he smooths his fingers over its dog eared edges. He always takes his time inspecting your drawings, taking all it in before commenting each one. Yet, he doesn’t stop at a compliment, he’s curious about your thought process.  
    “What inspired you to make this?” he asks one day, and you find that he’s turned the pages past the costume designs for Kitty Section and has found your superhero casual wear. Chat Noir is centerfold here, lounging in various comfortable sweatshirt designs. On the facing page, there’s a whole illustration detailing outfits worn by Adrien Agreste. You were especially inspired after watching one of his pageants on TV. Seeing Luka linger over them over makes you stutter  
    “Uh,” you swallow, opting to redirect his attention back to the casual cat wear “… I’m just, very inspired by our local heroes.”  
    Luka chuckles, you can tell he’s not looking at the superhero designs.  
    “It’s great that you have a muse.” he glances at you knowingly before handing you back your work “I have one too.” and you feel the ventricles of your heart squeeze warmth to your face. You start to understand that he is a bit more wise to what you don’t tell him. In fact, you’re starting to suspect that Luka might be the most emotionally intelligent person you know, or at least the most perceptive. Yet he doesn’t push you to explain yourself, to reveal something that doesn’t explicitly need to be said.  
    There aren’t too many people like that in your life.  
    Doodling used to be something you did alone. You would find an inspirational niche around the city, or, when you’re in your room with Tikki by your side. Now, it’s something you can share with someone else, someone to bounce a thought off of, someone who can bounce an idea off of you in return.  
    “That was beautiful.” you murmur into your paper, just as he surfaces from a fifteen minute improvised ballad. Sometimes you feel a little spoiled, listening to him work. It’s sort of like sitting in on a private, quiet concert. A song that will never be heard twice, because it was not meant to be heard by anyone at all. Luka plucks against the guitar idly, a few different chords. There’s a silence between you, but it is never empty. It’s a comfortable, and companionable quiet, that’s filled with the gentle sound of water slapping the side of the boat, the smooth, textured sound of your graphite on paper. There’s no need to spoil it with banter. Conversations between you can easily be spread out over a couple of hours, picked up at your leisure.  
    “Hey Luka…” you finally venture  
    “Hey, Marinette,”  
    “I have a question for you.”  
    He looks up. You don’t miss the fondness in his gaze, one that warms you up inside like a hot drink on a cold day.  
    “Do… you believe in having a one true love?”  
    There’s a thoughtful pause, and Luka hums  
    “Pulling out the deep questions huh?” he shifts until he’s resting his chin in one palm.  
    “Yeah, that’s a bit intense one isn’t it?” you rub the back of your neck, which feels hot against your cool hand. This bold thing of you to ask, you realize. Maybe in another situation, you’d be utterly mortified to even propose it. You certainly couldn’t expect to ask anyone at school the same question, but you don't feel scandalized to ask it here. You’re just really curious about what he has to say, without judgment.   
    From somewhere, Anarka barks out a hoarse laugh. You look around to see if she’s overheard you, but you only spot her gently steering the vessel, chatting with Juleka who has her long, violet hair tied away from her face, something that you’ve only ever see her do at home.  
    “I know very little about my father, except that my mother loved him very much.” Luka finally speaks up, and you see that his gaze is also drawn towards his mother “Growing up, I’ve seen my mom fall in love with other men. Really, truly, in love.” he looks down at you “Just because she’s fallen in love twice, or three times, doesn’t mean the love that she had for my father is any less. It just means love was lucky enough to find her more than once. I think that true love finds a home in a different part of your heart, it plays out like a different chord to a song in your life.”  
    “You think that’s possible?” you resist the urge to chew on the end of your pencil. The familiar bundle of nerves in your heart warn you that you’re starting to enter dangerous waters, but- you’re surprisingly okay with that. You were never too afraid to ask Luka for anything before “To have more than one true love, I mean?”  
    “I think that it happens a lot more often than the rest of the world lets on.” he says after a moment “And… I don’t want to imagine a world where my mom couldn’t find love a second time if she wanted to. I don’t want to imagine her pining forever for something that’s never going to return to her. That could have made her a bitter person, afraid to let something new into her life.”  
    That could make anyone a bitter person you nod silently, and for a brief moment... you think of Gabriel Agreste.  
    You set down your pad of paper.  
    “You are really wise.” you admit after a moment “Sometimes I think that friendship is the same way. Why would any love be any different?”  
    He blinks and then smiles  
    “We’re still just kids, we’re figuring out who we are, who we want to be, and the kind of person that we want to share our lives with. Neither of us can expect to know about all of this right away. Love takes time. Work. It takes practice, sometimes with different people.” he lays his guitar carefully aside. “That’s not something to feel guilty about, by the way.”  
    “Guilty? I uh… erm… guilty?”  
    He glances up through his bangs in concern.  
    “Sorry,” he amends “It’s just hard for me to miss when something is bothering you.”  
    “So you know… then. That I’m… in love… with someone?” your chest is stuttering, you move to sit up against the seat next to him “Does that upset you?”  
    There’s a wistful smile growing on Luka’s face like he’s hearing what lingers behind your words.  
    “I wouldn’t exactly call myself the jealous type, Marinette.” he chuckles “But it’s easy to see that you already have a muse.” he nods towards your sketchbook that you left on the floor. The Adrien sketches, although hidden, and unspoken seem to burn through the pages.  
    “Someday, I know you’ll confront that muse head on because I’ve been lucky enough to see how passionately you love, and how deeply you care about what you love. You already have a space in your heart to offer, and I’m not going to try and claim that,” he says it in that unhurried manner of his, that you find that your shoulders are relaxing, and the tension in your spine leaves as easily as it came. “You’ve written your own love anthem. I just happen to be able to hear how beautiful is. It just so happens that you’ve become my muse too.” he raises his eyebrows a fraction “Don’t let that fact stop you.”  
    You imagine that this is probably what love is actually supposed to feel like, after the cheap imitation of infatuation has been burned from off from the top of it, and all that’s left is something warm and comfortable, and understanding.  
    It’s strange. Aside from Tikki, there’s no other person that you feel like you can feel utterly at peace with. Even with best friends like Alya, there’s always a small, warning pressure in the pit of your mind that you’re walking on thin ice where black spots lurk underneath. You juggle to keep your secret identity, force a ruse to cover up a blunder, a little push to distance yourself from compromising advances, a poorly timed, panic inducing far-too-intricate dance just to look like you’re as normal as everyone else.  
    “You’re smiling.” he chuckles  
    “I’m just thinking about confessing.” the boldness of your own statement surprises you “I’m just wondering of how to phrase it as beautifully as you do.”  
    “What would you like to confess?”  
    No fancy words, you think. Just the truth. Honest, and simple, and without demand, like how he would do it. You slowly reach for his hand. He has painted nails, but the paint is chipped and worn down from where he’s strummed metal strings, and there are callouses on the tips of his fingers.  
    “I like this.” you barely whisper.  
    “Canoodling?” he supplies in the same conspiratorial whisper. You both snicker into each other's shoulders, and you smell the outdoors in his clothes.  
    “You seem to have me all figured out.” you rest your cheek on his shoulder “I wonder if you’re going to guess what I’m going to say next.”

  
    “You’re a very special girl Marinette.” his voice hums against your chest “I’m sure there’s a lot more to you that I don’t know. Surprise me.” the way he says it makes you take another mental double take. That wry Couffaine humor was snaking its way in, and it makes you wonder how much he knows, how much he actually REALLY knows.  
    You lean back to study him. He looks as utterly content as you do right now in the copper sunset. Unassuming and contemplative, watching your eyes like they might be windows to your soul. When you lean forward again, his arms slowly slide forward to support you.  
    You’ve smooched a couple of boys before, but this is the first time you’ve kissed someone that you like that happily returns it in kind. Luka may not have stolen your first kiss, but he’s stealing the one that counts.  
    You find that you’re totally okay with that.  
    When you part- you forget everything for a moment. You are only aware that the color of his hair is perfectly matched to the color of his eyes- like sea glass.  
    “Hey, remember to breathe.” Luka mutters after a moment, and you gasp a little, letting out a breath you didn’t know you where holding. He lets out a gentle laugh that tickles the hairs against your neck. "Funny girl."  
    A wild confession, you think to yourself, but as Luka once said, sometimes things are better expressed without words.

**Author's Note:**

> I always liked this ship.  
> After the latest episode of Silencer, I just wanted to write something short, genuine to character as I could, and that it's okay to fall in love more than once.  
> <3


End file.
